Antharion - Indie, TB, party-based Kickstarter

October 20th, 2012, 12:32

Antharion is an indie 2D RPG with turn-based combat, a party and an open world inspired by Ultima, among others. The team are looking for a modest $15k from their Kickstarter, with $2k already pledged:

Antharion can best be described as a fusion of various elements from classic series like The Elder Scrolls, Baldurs Gate, and Ultima into a single player old-school RPG experience. We wanted to combine an immense open-ended living-breathing world where the player is free to go anywhere and do anything, with a deep tactical turn-based combat system, a rich skill set and character creation system, and the distinctive feel of old-school classic RPGs.Features

I think the environments look ok, but Iīm finding the character art and lack of animations grating.
Iīm not particularly "graphic whore-y" when it comes to graphical fidelity, but when a game comes with art direction/presentation I dislike itīs pretty much a show stopper for me, even when other gameīs features sound good (like in this case).
Toning down the charactersī exaggerated look and adding more animations (even though thatīs quite a significant workload increase) would go a long way at making this game more appealing to me and, I guess, bigger audience.

Can't decide if the lack of walking animations is actually an advantage in this case, because it looks rather funny in a South Park kind of way. It's not like it's supposed to look super realistic (or scary) anyways.

— "Since you are sharing your opinion with others you might give a false impression to those who haven't played the game yet." zahratustra shares his view why i'm not entitled to have an opinion on RPGwatch

Originally Posted by vurt
Can't decide if the lack of walking animations is actually an advantage in this case, because it looks rather funny in a South Park kind of way. It's not like it's supposed to look super realistic (or scary) anyways.

But the game seems to go for "serious" tone otherwise.
I mean,

Antharion features a dark and mysterious world of magical mystery and political intrigue.

or

As part of a poor group of peasants from a small quiet town on the outskirts of the Kingdom, you suddenly found yourself swept up in The Purge when a group of Zeverith’s men stormed your town, murdered the townsfolk, and burned every last house to the ground. Taken deep into an underground dungeon for a torturing and execution, you somehow manage to overpower your captors.

@ DeepO, a lot of South Park episodes have dark themes with murdering or even torture, it depends on how you read it i guess. I don't get a very serious vibe from it But it could also be that the game isnt finished you know.. He does say money will go to more pixel art.

— "Since you are sharing your opinion with others you might give a false impression to those who haven't played the game yet." zahratustra shares his view why i'm not entitled to have an opinion on RPGwatch

Originally Posted by DeepO
Yeah, letīs not provide them any feedback till the game is finished then .

What do you mean by that? Isn't this feedback?

— "Since you are sharing your opinion with others you might give a false impression to those who haven't played the game yet." zahratustra shares his view why i'm not entitled to have an opinion on RPGwatch

Originally Posted by vurt
What do you mean by that? Isn't this feedback?

It is!
I just didnīt like the perceived notion that my superinsightful comment might be irrelevant since the game is not finished yet .
I read the "But it could also be that the game isnt finished you know.." bit as a "letīs rather not offer any feedback yet", which it seems was an unfortunate misinterpretation.
Sorry if I read too much into your post and/or came off as too snarky.

I think it looks quite decent even without walking animations if they make the camera smooth scroll. Some nice lighting and other effects can be seen. I think it looks about as good as the latest Spiderweb games overall, if not better. Sure, some aspects are worse (like the per tile camera movement), but others are better and overall it's solid.

Having funny looking graphics with serious themes in the story is nothing new to video games. Warhammer anyone? Or games in general even. Lots of funny pen and paper RPG art around. Same for all the wargames using super deformed art style for the unit figures. Adventure games also often look funny with serious stories. Serious or not it's the text that will give off most of the mood when the graphics are this low-fi.

Anyway, it looks like they've already developed a lot of the game. Their Kickstarter page has lots more information than those bullet points too, they mention having 20 cities, 100 dungeons, NPCs with daily schedules and AI that has them report you to guards or attack you when appropriate, loads of already implemented spells in three different schools, hand crafted everything rather than generated environments, etc.